104 in 2008 Week 11: Ace in the Hole

Wow. . . I managed to stay caught up for almost a whole week. Ah, well. I may have only watched one movie this week, but what a movie it was.

Ace in the Hole
Billy Wilder, 1951

Billy Wilder is best known for two types of movies – slight, but wonderfully entertaining comedies (Some Like it Hot) and noir (Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd). The two sensibilities collide in Ace in the Hole, a dark satire that was his biggest failure ever. It turns out that Wilder’s comedic sensibility, when removed from the farcical and lighthearted context of his comedic successes, twists and transforms into something altogether more miserable, dark, and horrifying – much more so than anything in his actual noirs.

By the way, if you can’t tell from the way I’m describing it, I absolutely loved this movie.

The great Kirk Douglas stars as a reporter who finds a man trapped within some Indian ruins deep within a mountain. Anxious for a big story that will allow him to move back into the big leagues, he builds the rescue operation into a giant circus, prolonging it for as long as he can while the man inches closer and closer to death. Douglas never really allows you to like his character, but you can’t take your eyes off of him either. He starts off obnoxious but amusing, and winds up sad but terrifying. As performances go, it’s a tad broad – but in a way that feeds back into the character and adds to his depth – just as the comedy in the movie as a whole feeds back and bolsters the tragedy.

The ending is just a little bit awkward, probably Hayes Code-mandated - but it doesn’t hurt the movie the way the similar bit of Hayes-groveling at the end of Detour did. And even if it did, it would still be worth it to get to that perfectly staged and framed final shot.

9.5/10

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